


Maybe That's Why

by Sunlit_Capybara



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol, Background Relationships, Explicit Language, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 12:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11486634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunlit_Capybara/pseuds/Sunlit_Capybara
Summary: It's been seven years since they saved the universe. Maybe Shiro can finally figure out where he and Pidge went wrong.(Tagged underage to be one the safe side because there's a teenage crush involved.)





	Maybe That's Why

If there was a single day of the year that Shiro hated more than any other, it was April second. But it wasn’t _just_ April second. 

April first was April Fools, of course. And despite his best attempts to dissuade them, every damn year, some smartass cadets decided they were going to be the ones to go down in Garrison legend and get a rise out of Instructor Shirogane. 

(Every year, they failed. But that didn’t make the attempts more pleasant for Shiro.)

And then there was the second, which Shiro did his best not to think about. (There was some warped irony in his constant attempts to forget Remembrance Day.) But whether he thought about it or not, the Garrison did a whole big thing, and there were dignitaries and uncomfortable dress uniforms and speeches and all Shiro could think about, the whole time he was shaking hands with people who thanked him for his service and listened to speeches extolling the virtues of Earth’s heroes, was how soon he and whoever of his friends had drawn the short straw that year could go back to his apartment and get completely wasted.

Everyone else could plead long distance, or work, or family issues, but Shiro’s superiors made clear that he was _expected to be at the events,_ as they took place less than a mile from his front door. Luckily, because Shiro was a lucky man who had good friends, he was never alone—but because no one wanted to be there, it was always just Shiro and one other sacrificial lamb.

He could imagine exactly how the five-person text conversation would go (he knew the text conversations took place, but he was never included in them).

>   
> Hunk: Guys who’s going this year? We can’t let Shiro go alone.  
> Lance: I took the hit last year (AND ALSO LITERALLY TOOK HITS FOR EACH OF YOU) so not me  
> Matt: Sorry my therapist told me I shouldn’t go after last time.  
> Pidge: matt the only therapy you’ve been in for the last two years is physical therapy for your leg  
> Matt: Yeah well my physical therapist is smart and she thinks it’s a terrible idea  
> Keith: look non of us want 2 go but smone has 2  
> Matt: Seriously I love Shiro as much as you all but do we really have to do this? He’s a big boy and after six years he can handle one of these on his own, right?  
> Lance: …  
> Lance: …I mean, maybe? I’m super busy this year with the family…  
> Keith: I guess its not that bda he can handle it  
> Hunk: You know, you’re right, he’s being a big baby and we already put our lives in danger because of him, so we don’t owe him anything.  
> Lance: If it weren’t for Shiro I would have never gotten almost blown up and would have been around when my nieces were born…  
> Pidge: he kind of is the reason we’ve all been miserable and have all sorts of neuroses if you think about it  
> Keith: so we agree fuck shiro he can go alone also lets never talk to him again  
> 

Okay so maybe Shiro didn’t know _exactly_ how the texts went.

But in any case, April second was rough. 

And then was April third, which was the one day of the year Shiro woke up hungover, and always had to say goodbye to one of his closest friends (again) as they took off for wherever home was that year. And to top it off, it was her birthday. 

This year was going to be even worse than usual. 

That first year, they all came. It was still early, no one knew what would happen, and he guessed they all figured they might have some magical revelation about what they’d been through or at least maybe heal some scars. But they’d walked out of the convention center that night with the same leaden feeling in their stomachs, and the silence had been almost intolerable until Hunk (yes, _Hunk_ ) yelled _“FUCK”_ at the top of his big lungs into the dry desert air, and Keith had started laughing/crying, and Lance had paused for a moment before bending down beside Matt and saying, “Piggy back ride to the nearest bar? First round’s on me.”

And Matt had laughed for the first time in days, hopped on Lance’s back and pointed like a knight on a mission and cried, “Onward! Let’s get fucking hammered!” And Lance had mimicked the clip-clop sound from that one comedy and galloped off towards a sketchy-looking dive called the Log Cabin.

Hunk had guffawed, and turned to Keith and said, “Wanna ride?” And Keith, still laughing/crying, let out a huge bellow of a laugh and answered, “From you? Always.” And Hunk had looked stunned for just a second, before chalking it up to an emotional breakdown and squatting down so Keith could loop his arms around Hunk’s neck and lock his legs around his waist. And Hunk had trotted off after Lance and Matt.

And so it had just been the two of them, the night wind growing steadily stronger and whipping her dress in frantic signals around her legs. Standing in uncomfortable silence, both as still as a broken clock, and just as wrong. 

Pidge had caved first. (Was caved the right word? Or was it that she struck first? Was there a word for ‘struck first’ that implied bravery and honor? Sometimes he felt like English was an insufficient language.) “Aren’t you going to offer me a ride?” she joked.

Shiro’s throat closed up. The desert made his mouth so dry ( _the desert, right,_ the other part of his brain annotated). He cleared it and said, “I could, if you want.”

Even in the streetlamp darkness he could see her eye roll. “I don’t want. It just seemed like everyone else was pairing up so…” She trailed off with a shrug. Shiro knew, because her mind missed nothing, that she hadn’t missed the double entendre she had made, or his tepid response to it. 

And maybe that was why it hadn’t worked, before. 

Looking for some way out, Shiro took his cue from Lance’s theatricality. He bowed with a flourish and offered Pidge his arm. “Milady?”

Somehow (of course) it was the exact wrong thing to do. Pidge had looked at him with a sadness and disappointment he’d hoped to never see on her face, and walked quickly to the bar. Alone.  
Shiro had followed and proceeded to drink more vodka than is healthy for a liver. (He hated straight vodka, but damn it was effective. Give him a good whiskey any day, but the Log Cabin was not a good whiskey type of place.) They avoided each other for the rest of the night, even when the clock struck midnight and Lance insisted on everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to Pidge and buying a round of shots that looked like jizz and tasted like powdery cake mix. It was only then that Shiro realized Pidge would have been in trouble if the Log Cabin was the type of place that carded—at least, before midnight she would have been.

At some point (because of course this would happen in the wee hours of April third), Keith came up and leaned a drunk head on Shiro’s shoulder. “Shiro,” he’d said seriously. “I’m’n love Hunk.”

In an attempt to be reassuring, Shiro had patted the side of his face awkwardly. “I know, Keith. We all do.”

“No, b’cause Hunk doesn’t,” he objected, his voice rising. Shiro shushed him. “No, don’t shush me!” He snuggled into Shiro’s shoulder. Keith was only cuddly when he was drunk off his ass (which, for Keith, was a feat). “I just wanna make sure. You know. You’re ‘k.”

“With you and Hunk? Of course I am.” He snorted. “Not that anything is going on with you two.”

“Nooooo,” he whined. How was it that drunk Keith sounded like Lance and drunk Lance sounded like…more Lance? “Want you happy. We all do.”

The last shot was kicking in. (Shiro had gestured the bartender in close and asked for another of the cake-mix shots, but no one could ever know). That was the only thing Shiro could blame for his lips forming the words, “Not all of you.”

Keith had looked up with those big innocent eyes, shocked. “ _Who_ doesn’t wan’ you happy? Can I fight ‘em? I’ll fight ‘em.”

And Shiro had patted him on the shoulder, reassured him that no, there wasn’t anyone who didn’t want Shiro happy, and Shiro was fine, and eventually Keith fell asleep on his shoulder and started drooling. So Shiro sat in the same spot, nursing a beer as the bartender gave him and Keith dirty looks, while Matt and Lance acted as wingmen for each other, and Hunk punched something into the vintage tune selector and dragged Pidge out to awkwardly dance to a song that was horrible for dancing. 

And at last call, Shiro had shaken Keith awake, Hunk and Pidge met the two of them at the bar, and Lance and Matt begged off from the last bar patrons they’d been flirting with (with phone numbers, of course – they made an _excellent_ team). And the six of them stumbled their way to the curb, and got a cab somehow, and made it back to Shiro’s apartment (barely just furnished, but he’d gotten a bed for the guest room and a pull-out couch first thing). And Keith had stumbled into the bathroom and curled up on the floor with a towel for a pillow, slurring something about being prepared, and they’d realized in a fit of giggles none of them could figure out the pull-out couch, so they’d just taken all the pillows and blankets from the beds and couch and piled them on the floor and collapsed in a big drunken heap. Because what was spending a night on the floor compared to what they’d been through? And eventually Keith had thrown up and gargled some mouthwash and plopped down next to Lance with an arm around Hunk’s torso and Shiro had thought, in spite of the shit they’d heard that night and the shit they’d done, they might all be okay. 

The next morning, Hunk (because he was Hunk) made an enormous greasy breakfast with eggs and bacon and hash browns (he’d given Shiro a shopping list, thank goodness, because Shiro mostly subsisted on meal substitute bars and protein shakes those days), as everyone groaned and tried not to speak too loudly and nursed coffee mugs like the water of life. And while they’d all been miserable, at least they’d been miserable _together._

They’d all caught flights in the afternoon, and after his apartment was empty and lonely again, Shiro had taken the gift he’d meant to give her and tossed it in the bottom drawer of his dresser.

**

But that had been the first year. For the rest of the April seconds, only one of them had come. This year was the sixth anniversary. And while he hadn’t spoken to Pidge much since that night, he doubted her stalwart sense of right and wrong had changed in the last five years. 

Every other human who had piloted a Lion gone to at least two Remembrance Day galas. Pidge had done one. 

This year, for the first time in so long, it would just be him and Pidge.


End file.
